Trying to harvest mushrooms that are hunger frozen yields this interesting error message.
Well the entire point of the later seasons is scarcity. You might be getting 1/6th the resources of spring, but this means that every bit of iron you gather is going to be worth 6 times as much to anyone who's run out of gear, and if you can get even two pips of plentiful harvest after skills + potions + food in the winter, you're going to make an absolute killing when everyone's running out of sticks to bonk each other on the head with.
Also, 'hunger touched' items as you described them would just end up being 'pvp' sets to the normal crafted general use sets, the stuff I made for the test campaign isn't even 1/4 worn after the couple days I've played it.